Snake Oil Science

The Truth About Complementary and Alternative Medicine

R. Barker Bausell Ph.D.

Snake Oil Science

The Truth About Complementary and Alternative Medicine

R. Barker Bausell Ph.D.

Description

Hailed in the New York Times as "entertaining and immensely educational," Snake Oil Science is not only a brilliant critique of alternative medicine, but also a first-rate introduction to interpreting scientific research of any sort. The book's ultimate goal is to illustrate how the placebo effect conspires to make medical therapies appear to be effective—not just to consumers, but to therapists and poorly trained scientists as well. Bausell explores this remarkable phenomenon and explains why research on any therapy that does not factor in the placebo effect (and other placebo-like effects) will inevitably produce false results. Moreover, as the author shows in an impressive survey of research from high-quality scientific journals, studies employing credible placebo controls do not indicate positive effects for alternative therapies beyond those attributable to random chance. Readers will come away from this book with a healthy skepticism of claims about the latest "miracle cure," be it St. John's Wort for depression or acupuncture for chronic pain.

Snake Oil Science

The Truth About Complementary and Alternative Medicine

R. Barker Bausell Ph.D.

Table of Contents

Introduction 1: The Rise of Complementary and Alternative Therapies 2: A Brief History of Placebos 3: Natural Impediments to Making Valid Inferences 4: Impediments That Prevent our Physicians and Therapists From Making Valid Inferences 5: Impediments that Prevent Poorly Trained Scientists from Making Valid Inferences 6: Why Randomized Placebo Control Groups Are Necessary in CAM Research 7: Judging the Credibility and Plausibility of Scientific Evidence 8: Some Personal Research 9: How We Know that the Placebo Effect Exists 10: A Bio-Chemical Explanation for the Placebo Effect 11: Do CAM Therapies Work Or Are They Placebo Effects? Evidence From High Quality Randomized Placebo Controlled Trials 12: Do CAM Therapies Work Or Are They Placebo Effects? Evidence From High Quality Systematic Reviews 13: How CAM Therapies Are Hypothesized to Work 14: Tying Up a Few Loose Ends Notes Index